raspberry

Impressive desserts don’t have to be complicated. Take these chocolate covered stuffed raspberries for example. They look elegant, yet are really easy to put together. I chose to create a lemon-mascarpone filling, but a variety of other flavors or creams would do. A few minutes in the freezer is all they need to be cold enough for the magic shell sauce to harden, resulting in a decadent dessert fit for any occasion. Just how easy these Chocolate Covered Stuffed Raspberries are will be our secret.

Place the filling in a squeeze bottle and gently fill each raspberry with mascarpone filling, laying them on a shallow pan or plate when filled. Reserve the remaining filling for another use. Place the plate in the freezer for ten minutes to chill the raspberries. Shake the magic shell sauce, then pour over the raspberries to coat. Once the coating has set, serve or store in the refrigerator until ready to serve.

I had never picked raspberries and I thought it would be a fun excursion for my kids and I. We had a great time picking and eating berries right from the vine (with permission of course, and I’m sure you can guess that with two toddlers I did most of the picking and they did most of the eating), but I have to say that the most interesting part of the day was discovering YELLOW raspberries. Not under-ripe, but actually yellow at maturity.

Personally I think they taste a bit sweeter than the red variety, though my husband says they taste the same to him.

Yellow raspberries were just the first of this week’s discoveries. I found two other new (to me) berries at a local store – kiwi berries and dried mulberries. A kiwi berry is a small variety of the kiwi fruit that is about the size of a grape with smooth skin. You actually eat them whole, which means you get the juicy kiwi flavor without the hassle of peeling.

Dried mulberries are chewy and dense in texture, more similar to a dried currant or fig rather than a raisin. The taste is mellow with a slightly spiced undertone. You can use them interchangeably for other dried fruit in recipes, or just eat them by the handful like me, using their “superfood status” as an excuse to hide the fact that they are just as addictive as candy.

I couldn’t choose between the three berries this week so I decided to throw all of them into a yogurt parfait. I wanted to be able to fully enjoy the flavor of the berries, so I left the yogurt flavor light. I stirred a bit of apple pie spice and honey into plain non-fat yogurt and topped it with a generous portion of my triple berries. I only wish yellow raspberries were easier to find so that I could enjoy this treat more often!